Mahan v. Avera St. Luke's

After its only neurosurgeon left, Avera St. Luke's (ASL) (defendant), the sole private nonprofit hospital within 90 miles of Aberdeen, South Dakota, sought to recruit replacement surgeons but learned that supporting more than one spine-trained surgeon in the small community was commercially difficult; when a competing physicians group, Orthopedic Surgery Specialists (OSS) (plaintiff), built a rival day-surgery center causing ASL significant income loss, ASL's Board closed staff privileges to new spine-surgery applicants (without affecting existing staff), finding this served the community's best interests. Dr. Mahan (plaintiff), an OSS spine-trained orthopedic surgeon twice denied privileges under this closure, sued along with OSS alleging the closure breached medical staff bylaws, and the trial court granted a permanent injunction ordering ASL to consider Mahan's application; ASL appealed.